Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

A bird is a flash of color, a burst of song, or a high, aloof vigilance. It can be all gentleness and soft appeal, or baleful, raptorial harshness. It may be loathsome or lovable; regal or revolting. But stripped of all man-given personality, the bird is a fantastic mechanism hung with an array of Rube Goldberg gadgets that make life more liveable.

John Madson, Stories from Under the Sky

Big Sale on Nature Books!

In honor of the 2010 North American Prairie Conference going on right now in Cedar Falls, Iowa the University of Iowa Press has put a number of our nature titles on sale for the month of August. Please check it out!

Plant of the Week

Four o’clock
Mirabilis nyctaginea (Michx.) MacM.
other common names: umbrellawort, common four o’clock
Mirabilis: from Latin for “wonderful” or “strange.” The genus name was once Admirabilis, but it was shortened by Linnaeus. (Carolus Linnaeus was the Swedish naturalist and botanist who established the modern method of applying genus and species names to all plants and animals. His book Species Plantarum, published in 1753, provides the basis for plant classification.)
Nyctaginea: from Greek, indirectly meaning “nightblooming”
Four o’clock family: Nyctaginaceae

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition